The size, shape and length of the ears can vary, and this affects the nature of the species they're on. Normal ears with a slightly pointy tip? Probably a Human Alien or an elf, but might be a demon or even a vampire, so be on your guard. Long and tubular pointy ears that are a bit ratty? Then it's a filthy monster/mutant that is Always Chaotic Evil and must be purged with flame. Dog or cat-like ears that move, with tufts of fur? Probably a Beast Man or Wolf Man, back away slowly without making eye contact. Or perhaps long, gracefully arching ears? Then they're obviouslyelves or something far above mere human, and must be treated with respect and humility because they have all kinds of kickass magic and martial prowess.

Lodoss War was the Trope Codifier for "jigokumimi" on elves; that specific style of long, tapered ear bled into every following depiction of elves in Japanese media and even into a large number of western productions, most notably Warcraft.

The Zentraedi of Macross have these, with Zentraedi/Human hybrids sometimes expressing these in later series. A Retcon as Zentraedi from the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series had normal ears, but after Do You Remember Love? depicted its Zentreadi with pointed ears, the convention was picked up by later Macross productions.

Along with Mihoshi, though hers are more subtle. This being the only time the word "subtle" can be applied to Mihoshi.

Long and kinda squared-off ears are a common visual shorthand for Human Aliens in ''Tenchi Muyo! world. Most off-world characters have them, unless they're from Jurai or Seniwa (Juraians have normal ears, since they're basically just a different race of humanity with some artificial enhancements; Seniwans like Mihoshi have much smaller traditional pointy ears and Cute Little Fangs). And Wau, of course, have nekomimi.

Hiruma from Eyeshield 21 has pointy ears that make him look downright demonic, but he's human.

Mainly subverted thus far in Berserk. The main character has pointy ears, as well as roughly half the cast (including extras) early on. As of yet, there is no explanation for this, at least in-story; it may just be artistic/some weird way some people from Midland are different from people in real life, but that doesn't explain the lack of new characters with pointy ears. Then again, it may be because the author's style has shifted, and he decided to keep Guts' ears as symbolic. Elves, however, still play this straight.

Most of the human-looking demons in InuYasha have pointed ears to establish their inhuman status, most notably Shippo, Kagura, Kōga and Lord Sesshomaru.

In Slayers, Elves, such as Memphis, have the classic small, pointed ears, although Mellyroon, an Elf from a Non-Serial Movie, inexplicably has bigger ears. On the flip side, Brau Demons have large, grotesque pointed ears. Zelgadis, a chimera, has decent-sized elfish ears because a Brau Demon was implanted into his genetic makeup via magic.

Filia Ul Copt (a gold dragon who is usually in human form) is also revealed to have these in some official art◊, although most of the time you can't see them because of her hood with large green orbs on the sides. Other members of her race, while in human form, also have them. However, Milgazia of the Golden Dragon clan that serves the Water Dragon King in Dragon Valley and keeper of the Claire Bible however, has rounded ears in human form. His draconic true form is hinted at instead in the shape of his eyes and pupils in anime, manga and novel art.

Some Claymores have pointy ears, and seeing that they are half-demon, the amount of yoki an individual has might have something to do with it.

In Blue Exorcist demons have long, pointed ears. Rin, being a half-demon, has only slightly pointed ears when his sword, which seals his demon powers, is sheathed.

While he's not yet been seen in the games, the Metroid manga featured a pointed eared alien named Kreatz who was on Samus's squad back in her federation days. Kreatz and his partner Mauk (a hairy pig alien) were clearly designed to be shout-outs to the two founding extraterrestrial members of Star Trek's Federation, the Vulcans and the Tellarites. Interesting because the races' personalities were inverted for Kreatz and Mauk (Kreatz's species being the insulting violent one and Mauk's being proud intellectuals but assumed to be warriors due to their appearances).

In Hekikai No Aion, Shizuki and Yuzuki, who are both demons and twins, have pointed ears.

Guild members in Last Exile have pointed ears, along with many nobles.

Ilulu from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. This can probably be chalked up to her lack of skill with transforming since all the other dragons have normal ears in their human forms.

Comic Books

There's Moloch in Watchmen, but it went totally unacknowledged there as well as in the film (and was much more subtle).

Several comic books in the Star Wars Expanded Universe feature characters of the Sephi, who very humanlike but with pointy ears. Fae, Aleco Stusea, and that one girl who was inspired by Princess Zelda. We don't hear that much about the latter two, but Fae was said to be a thousand years old, and was believed (at least by Obi-Wan Kenobi) to be immortal.

Many characters in the comic Gold Digger, including the main character Cheetah when she goes to human form.

The elves in Poison Elves have exceptionally long, and very pointy, ears.

Northstar and Aurora have slightly pointy ears (though sometimes artists forget). An Alpha Flight story claimed it was because their mother was a Norse elf, but that story was unceremoniously disposed of later on; apparently their ears are just like that.

Nightcrawler of the X-Men has pointy ears. Given his overall demonic appearance it's something of a surprise he doesn't have horns.

Initially, Morbiusthe Living Vampire did not have them, but later artists started adding them after which they quickly became a standard part of his appearance.

The shape-shifting Skrulls in Marvel Comics have pointed ears as part of their default appearance. Depending on the individual (and/or the artist), they can be anything from just slightly pointy to huge and bat-like.

In With Strings Attached, one of the many subtle (as opposed to screamingly blatant) touches that makes C'hou different from Earth is that there are elves with the requisite pointy ears. However, Word of God asserts that they're merely a pointy-eared race of humans.

Fan works set in Middle-earth mention the pointy ears of elves far more often than J. R. R. Tolkien's original books. In some fan stories, characters identify elves by their ears. An elf might disguise itself as a mortal man by covering its ear tips. (Tolkien does not use the ears. In The Lord of the Rings, characters can identify elves by hearing their voices.)

In The Games of the Gods, Rachel covers her elf ears and passes as a mortal woman. Most people suspect nothing, and accept Rachel as an uncommonly beautiful human. Rachel's elven voice raises no suspicion unless she sings too much.

Home with the Fairies has Maddie finding creatures that might be elves, fairies or nymphs. Maddie needs a glimpse of pointed ears (hidden under hair) to decide that they are elves.

Blink from X-Men: Days of Future Past. Although why the ability to create portals would also give her pointy ears isn't known. It could be just a peculiar side-effect of having teleportation abilities since Nightcrawler and Azazel also have them.

Piers Anthony and Robert E. Margroff's Kelvin of Rud series has two races of humans, one with round ears and the other with pointed ears. Ultimately this turns out not to have any great significance beyond a lame pun.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, hobbits have slightly pointed ears (described as such in a letter to an illustrator, but never in the narrative). On the other hand, his Elves' ears are only ever written about once, referred to as "leaf-shaped" in a posthumously published glossary of Noldorin. This is essentially the origin of the entire "pointy-eared elf" trope in modern fantasy; "leaf-shaped" is generally interpreted as "pointy".

The Elves of The Strands Series by Gael Baudino seem to have pointy ears, although it is never actually mentioned directly in the books. Still, it is implied several times when people who have recently been transformed into Elves because of their Elven heritage are encouraged by other Elves to cover their ears with their hair, so that they may move around in public without being recognized.

Though their ears are never described in the novels themselves, the Yuuzhan Vong from the New Jedi Order are often illustrated with prominent pointed ears. Otherwise, they're fairly humanlike (or would be if not for their cultural fixation on ritualized tatooing, scars, and general Body Horror).

In the Deverry novels, humans living near the Westfolk view them as barbarians for a number of reasons, including the claim that they crop their children's ears at birth. Jill takes one look at the long, delicately scalloped ears of the Westfolk and realises this is nonsense.

Several other Star Trek races. Halanans and Ramurans both have two points on each ear (and otherwise look human), while Arkenites have long ears that sweep backwards into points along the skull (as well as lumpy, bulbous bald heads and amber/green eyes).

It's mentioned in some games that the big ears are so Hylians can "hear the voices of the gods." Notably, in Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf's ears go from normal to pointed after obtaining the Triforce of Power, despite him being Gerudo, not Hylian.

Early in The Wind Waker, Ganondorf orchestrates the kidnappings of several pointy-eared girls. Because Hylians are rare in this game, and Zelda is a Hylian and likely in disguise, by sending his minions to look for elf-eared females he stands a decent chance of nabbing her. Unfortunately for him, Link and his sister are also Hylians, and the latter's kidnapping kicks off the adventure.

The bird-like Rito in The Wind Waker have noticeably pointy ears.

The Kokiri also have pointed ears, as do the Sheikah. Both of these are required from a storyline perspective, as in Ocarina of Time Link thought himself a Kokiri and Zelda pretends to be a Sheikah. They have other traits, however, that set them apart, such as eternal childhood for the Kokiri and red eyes for the Sheikah.

The imp Midna in Twilight Princess has strange long, jagged pointed ears. They seem fairly inflexible, and are longer in combined length than the rest of her head. They even look like they might even be sharp enough to give you a papercut.

Demon Lord Ghirahim of Skyward Sword has only one pointed ear in his normal form; the other, rounded, ear is hidden under his hair. His final form does have both ears pointed.

While the Gerudo have regular ears in Ocarina of Time (per the official art), the ones in Breath of the Wild have ears just as pointy as the Hylians' and Sheikah's.

Mainly the Blood Elves and Night Elves. Their ears are so long and pointy that they extend past their head, making them the best example for this trope in Western video games.

Elven rangers in Warcraft II had neat slightly pointed ears of roughly human size... in artwork and character portraits. The actual sprite has those huge flapping sheets. Of course, with such small figures running around the screen, the excessively long ears might been simply a way to say 'elf' at that resolution. Warcraft III, however, has both units and character portraits in 3D, and as a result, the elongated ears have snuck back into portraits and became canon.

Troll males have elongated ears, while females have theirs shortened as a part of enhancing the Cute Monster Girl appeal.

The elf-like inhabitants of whatever world the Jak and Daxter series takes place on have exceptionally long ears, with a total "ear-span" that is usually three to four times the width of their faces. Subverted in that the ears are not used to indicate anything supernatural about them - they seem to just be quirky-looking humans, and have been referred to as humans on more than one occasion.

Rena, uniquely among the Expelians in Star Ocean: The Second Story. (and its anime, Star Ocean EX), because she's actually Nedian; the other Nedians have the same Unusual Ears. The Vanguardians who play a minor role in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time seem to have a similar appearance. It's also mentioned in the in-game dictionary that some Expellians started to develop pointed ears within the last four hundred years.

Members of the Fellpool and Highlander races in First Departure have ears like this. Featherfolk, which are native to the same planet, do not (though they are Winged Humanoids).

Myuria Tionysus, and the entire race of Morphus in the game Star Ocean: The Last Hope exhibit extremely long ears, sticking out at an impossible angle. This is implied to be because they are an offshoot of the Nedians. The Eldarians also have very Vulcan-like points.

Everyone's favorite greedy Anti-Hero/game designer, Wario, has pointy ears. He doesn't seem to be a supernatural being, though, at least not any more than Mario himself. His partner in the Mario spin-offs, Waluigi, also has this trait.

The Avatar of Fire Emblem Fates has pointy ears thanks to being the son of a dragon god.

The Beastman race in the Lunar series (such as Mel, Jessica, Leo, and Mauri) have ears ranging from pointy to unusual. Ghaleon also has pointy ears but this goes unremarked upon in the games. note But not in spin-off manga, which elaborates that Ghaleon is the Sole Survivor of a Vile Tribe sister-race that once ruled Vane.

City of Heroes features several lengths of pointy ears in its character creator.

Eternal Sonata: March and Salsa's actual ears arch out to the side. (They also wear things in their hair that seem intended to evoke bunnies.) They're not explicitly called elves, but the idea is the same. Although you're also nice to March because, in addition to being able to mop up the floor with enemies like her sister Salsa, she's just so sweet that you'd come off as a jerk to treat her otherwise.

In Dark Dawn, the beastmen tend to have animal-like ears. Sveta in particular has the "pointy ears with tufted ends" variety.

Most of the humanlike summons also have these kind of ears.

In Lineage 2 all races except the Humans have pointed ears. This is to show how the Humans were created as unintentionally inferior and flawed in the world's creation myth. The Kamael have pointed ears because they are genetically altered elves essentially created to be living weapons.

Interestingly, Elves, Dark Elves and Fairies in the game have the standard anime-style jigokumimi while Orcs, Dwarves and Kamael ears only taper to more Vulcan-like points. The game's graphics don't render the point on Dwarf ears very well so they look round, even though official art depicts them with Tolkienesque 'leaf shaped' ears.

In Aion, "Humans" or Daevas from both Asmodian and Elyos races can have either human ears or pointed ears. In character creation, the one slider "Ear Shape" allows various ears shapes: large human ears to short human ears, then short pointy ears to long pointy ears.

Touhou has an... interesting history with this trope. Basically, ZUN can't draw ears, and usually hides them behind hair or hats. When he does draw them they turn out pointy regardless of whether they probably should. The first character to get ears, Parsee, is widely accepted as having Pointy Ears in fanon, and has had them semi-canonized by Wild and Horned Hermit.. The next, Orin, is a Cat Girl, so the fandom mostly pretends that she only has cat ears.note Her portrait had two sets of ears. Then Double Spoiler gave ears to its Tengu protagonists, leading to something of an uproar in the fandom. Now some fans have decided that all youkai have Pointy Ears, others stick with them for Parsee and the tengu, and the rest just stopped caring.

Even more strange for Parsee since the hashihime youkai is the vengeful spirit of a cheated human housewife...

It seems to vary by the individual: although none of them have ears as pointed as the elves, Botta's are quite tall, Kvar's rather shorter, and Yuan's are perfectly rounded, just to name a few examples. Raine and Genis deliberately style their hair to cover their ears to hide the lack of points.

A few original characters in the Kingdom Hearts series have pointed ears, like Master Xehanort, Xigbar and Saïx. The reason that they have pointed ears is unclear, but seeing as the three men all have Supernatural Gold Eyes and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep shows that Braig (Xigbar's original persona) gains the gold eyes and pointy ears at the same time, they could be another sign of giving into Darkness.

Half of the races in Rift. Interestingly enough, this applies whether or not you split humans and elves by faction. (The Defiant, however, have the edge on pointy ears.)

Fatima of Luminous Arc 2 has pointy ears, but she seems to be a normal human/witch and no one in-game comments on them.

The Phantasy Star series has Numans/Newmans, a genetically engineered race that resemble elves. In the original series, the ears were different between the two instances. In Phantasy Star II Nei and Neifirst have very long pointed ears that go past their heads. Rika in Phantasy Star IV has smaller pointed ears with bits of black on the ends. Phantasy Star Online's Newman race have differing ears depending on their class. Hunter Newmans have ears like Nei, while Forces have long pointed ears that stick out from the sides of their heads almost horizontally. In Phantasy Star Zero, Newman ears are much smaller, but still pointy. Phantasy Star Universe and its portable spinoffs, along with Phantasy Star Online 2, allow players to determine the shape of their newman's ears thanks to their powerful character creators.

Grimsley from Pokémon Black and White has pointy ears for.. Some reason. It's probably to emphasize he's a dark type trainer however he's one of the only - if the only- characters in the franchise to have Pointy Ears.

The High Entia in Xenoblade are humanoids with Mercury's Wings who also have pointy ears. Quite are few of them are part Homs, and are (generally) distinguished by their smaller wings and lack of the aforementioned pointy ears.

In League of LegendsWord of God states that being "ascended" by magic gives you these, as can be seen on champions like Morgana, Janna and Soraka. Oddly, it only seems to affect women as male champions like Ryze don't display them.

Dragon Age elves obviously have them; many characters refer to them as "knife ears" for it. Kossith have slightly pointed ears as well, but as the majority of them are also Qunari and tend to be seven or eight feet tall with horns, most people either avoid them entirely or find other things to comment on besides their ears.

The Races of Mer (Elves) possess the standard fantasy "Elf" version. The royal families of the Bretons (a race of Uneven Hybrid offspring of Man/Mer relations thousands of years ago) are said to still have slight points to their ears, showing their Mer ancestry.

Some other non-Mer (at least, as far as we know) beings also possess pointed ears, including Giants, Goblins, Ogres, and Rieklings.

In Fate/Grand Order, Medea, Circe and Semiramis all have pointy ears. No explanation is given, but it's presumed that this is a trait of magi from the Age of Gods. Though why this would be the case only for female magi and not, for example, the Caster version of Gilgamesh is unclear.

The Guardians (and any later bearers of Original Augments) in RetroBlade all have pointy ears. The longer an Augment is borne, the pointier the ears become. The Guardians themselves (having borne Augments for Millennia), have long pointed ears resembling a goats, but a new bearer's ears would be a bit closer to human.

Everyone in Chirault has really long, pointy ears. In the words of the author, this is "for no adequately explained reason other than that this is not Earth, so why not?" Also, they're a Shout-Out to Jak and Daxter.

Aisha, who's an elf, from Slimy Thief has pointy ears. She a thief and elves are uncommon where she's living, so she covers her ears with a veil to not bring attention to her.

Karin-dou 4koma: Tamaryu (dragon) and Sara (snake) have pointy elfish ears that are usually hidden by their hair. Elly (demon), however, has longer and pointier ears that sprout perpendicularly from her head.

The elves of ''Inverloch have six-inch long, tapered ears that stick out from the sides of their heads. (Although they are flexible enough to be comfortably slept on or tucked into hoods.)

In Quantum Vibe many first generation inhabitants of L-5 habitat were genetically engineered to have pointed ears. Nicole is a descendant and has the ears, though she usually covers them with her hair.

Aside from his green skin, Zukahnaut's alien protagonist is just a pair of pointy ears removed from looking like a fairly passable (if ugly) human.

Yayne and Sparkes Lukanta from The Wretched Ones, along with various minor characters, has these.

Dracula: Ruler of the Night: Dracula and his brides naturally have them due to being vampire. When Helsing first inspects Lucy after her second bite, her ears being partially mishappen along with the pale skin alerts him to the vampire attacks. When she turns completely, it goes full pointed. When Minerva, Lucy's mother, reveals she's a vampire during an attempted rescue, her ears are one of the first features to change. Mina's likewise start morphing after she gets bitten as well.

Walking In The Dark has this as a features of vampires and they can hide them to blend in with normal people.

Newman has pretty much all the characters have these since they're of various fantasy types: gnomes, elves, vampires, dwarves, pixies, etc.

In Daughter of the Lilies, elves have extra-long pointed ears that extend past their heads, while orcs' ears are pointed but only elongated by an inch or two. Brent, an Uneven Hybrid, has only a slight point to his ears from his orc grandparent.

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